A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Monday, October 1, 2018

ONCE DESPERATE UTILITIES’ FIRE WORRIES DISAPPEAR

CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2018 OR THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“ONCE
DESPERATE UTILITIES’ FIRE WORRIES DISAPPEAR”

It’s
extremely rare for California’s big utility companies to spend many millions of
dollars on a lobbying effort – and lose.

That very
nearly happened last summer to Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern
California Edison Co. and the San Diego Gas & Electric Co., which spent a
combined total of more than $10 million dollars over the last year trying to
have their way with state legislators, mainly over the issue of liability
levels when their equipment causes wildfires.

But not
to worry… the utilities eventually got almost precisely the bailout they
wanted.

Under
previous law, even when power lines and transformers were well maintained and
brush cleared to satisfy safety standards, utilities could be forced to pay for
damages when it was determined their equipment caused fires to break out.

The
lobbying flurry began in late 2017, after the state’s Public Utilities
Commission diverged from its longstanding pattern of caving in to utility
demands and handed down its most consumer-friendly decision in several decades.

That
unanimous ruling by the five commissioners may force SDG&E and not its
customers to pay more than $379 million in uninsured costs from the 2007 Witch,
Guejito and Rice fires that devastated large parts of San Diego County,
destroying more than 1,100 homes and killing two persons. Prior to those huge
fires, authorities found, SDG&E failed to maintain its equipment properly
and did not adequately trim tree branches and chaparral near power lines, which
caught fire when the power lines arced and sparked in high winds.

Even
now, 11 years after those fires, SDG&E is still in court trying to fob its
liability costs off onto customers, ironically including some whose homes
burned in the same fires.

The
late-2017 PUC decision came as hundreds of lawsuits were being filed against
PG&E and Edison for their alleged responsibility in the start of the huge
Wine Country and Thomas fires that ravaged cities like Santa Rosa, Calistoga,
Montecito and Ventura last year.

Those
companies do not want even to think about the possibility of a repeat of the
utility commission’s ruling against SDG&E. So they enlisted Gov. Jerry
Brown, whose sister has collected more than $1 million as a board member of
SDG&E’s parent company, to help push for new liability rules shifting much
of their obligation to insurance companies and individual homeowners who had
nothing to do with starting those fires.

The
rationale for such a gift to the privately-owned utilities was that the new
fire dangers caused by climate change and the dead trees it helps kill might
drive the companies into bankruptcy and endanger California’s electricity
supply.

If
there ever was much danger to the utilities, it no longer exists. Because even
after their initial bailout bill failed, the companies’ second effort measure
passed in the dying hours of the legislative session and Brown quickly signed
it.

This new law, known as SB 901, will let the utilities dun
customers for much of their fire-related liability, even when they are clearly
culpable. All it will take to authorize this is a vote by the PUC, which almost
always favors utilities over consumers. Had the bill not passed, SDG&E
said, the unusual 2017 PUC decision could have had “severe adverse practical
consequences for privately owned utilities” and might cause “ripple effects
throughout the state’s economy.”

Of course, that ignored the “ripple effects” that will
follow if utility customers in San Diego County and elsewhere are now forced to
pay off all the uninsured legal claims filed against utilities from the 2017
fires, which burned hundreds of thousands of acres and thousands of homes.

But the new law won’t cover the 2007 fires. If an appeals
court accepts SDG&E’s challenge to its liabilities from them, bet on
PG&E and Edison participating as they also renew their effort to avoid
paying for damage their equipment has caused.

The desperation the companies felt after losing their first
legislative round was an emotion very unfamiliar to them, as they’ve always
previously been favored by both regulators and state legislators. But those
companies really had nothing to worry about. Now only a generally sympathetic
regulatory panel stands between them and billions of dollars worth of aid from
their customers.

-30-
Email
Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough:
The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch
It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias
columns, go to www.californiafocus.net

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.